BetterHelpReviews of betterhelp.com

Reasonable services but could be a lot better. My main issue was the fact you can't schedule regular appointments, only one at a time. You also have to wait for therapists to 'release' time slots. This means two things: the onus is on users to regularly check and schedule, not great for grieving, depressed or ADHD folks. Second, you are charged on a weekly basis, but over time you get less appointments than the weeks you pay for. Call me cynical but I believe that's by design. It would be easy to have a button to click "same time next week if available". Such a button would take off the mental load of always remembering to schedule, and we want less mental load, right?

Betterhelp seemed like a godsend at first. It was my first time in therapy and I was matched with a counselor who was skilled and really understood me. Now, years later and as a therapist in training myself, I see how certain aspects are incredibly toxic and can create problems. It is not healthy to have 24/7 access to your therapist. It feels supportive and brilliant at the time, but it paves the way to dependence, attachment issues and incredibly blurry boundaries. This can lead to problems with reliance and eventual termination. I wish I'd never started on betterhelp.

Signed up had to pay upfront or after a week I dont remember but when I wanted to cancel before I ever used their services they would not refund me. If they had I would be a customer still. I was going to be worth at least $1000 but they couldn't refund me my initial payment. I would have came back in a short amount of time. Very strange business practice. They dont understand their own customers LTV and are willing to not allow a refund and lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Was booked by a therapist, who then refused to see me online due to "Insurance reasons" I am still owed 3 sessions and my subscription expired After posting this review, I did get a refund.

I completed the online assessment and before I was put in touch with anyone I was asked for my card details. An initial assessment via the phone or online with a counsellor should be provided before you ask for people's card details.

Thusfar, betterhelp is the only thing i can afford. I like their group sessions that you can attend but after 4 attempts to get therapists to keep their appointments, I have yet to speak with anyone. Its very disheartening especially when you wait a whole week and someone keeps cancelling the morning of. The other time i clearly explained that my house doesnt have good cell service and if i would need cell service to talk on the phone (or if the voice platform was through the app). She said it was through the app and was wrong and i was out another session when i couldve adjusted my location if i had the correct information. I understand that things happen but how many times does this need to happen before i can actually talk to someone. I understand that the online world is very difficult but i just hope everyone involved understands how disheartening it is when people feel like a donkey with a carrot tied to their back. Its especially not good for people looking for help.

The only good part of this was the customer support. The therapist I got was incapable of actually conducting a therapy session... I was bullied on our last call. She was very good at being empathetic, lots of "awws", "that is so unfair" and "woooow" - but without anything else. So if you are looking for someone to just agree with you that the world sucks, but without actually helping you do anything better, go for it. I am saying this because she was highly rated! But then, when I asked her to discuss something more in-depth, I got an opposite person, who bullied me while on a call. This was not a session. I do not know what it was. I brought up something that I struggled with, which I had identified and mentioned that I wanted to discuss 3 times, and she flipped her personality and started telling me "If you don't solve this it will impact your marriage! You can lose your husband! you just got married, do you want that?" and I am just sitting there shocked because I HAD BROUGHT IT UP, not her. I had come to her asking to discuss this, and I am getting scared into fixing it. What?? She then continued to be the complete opposite of a therapist. I said things like "I struggle in this type of situation" to which she replied "Well it is as I have thought in the beginning," and went on to say what bias she had about me, then topped it off with "Just stop doing that, just stop", and the icing on the cake was telling a person who has had so much trauma in their life that they cannot stand up for themselves "you don't respect other people, so you need to stop being angry at the fact that they are acting like this! you need to respect other people". She then proceeded to almost yell at me to repeat what she was telling me, which was: "You are not better than others! You cannot control other people. You need to respect other people" This was in the context in which she had earlier been angrier than me at a particular situation and the situation was someone imposing their religious beliefs on me, and me being frustrated that I had not called it out, but behaved very calmly - too calmly perhaps, in the sense of not even showing that it is something I do NOT want. Overall, I left that call crying - both for my money as well because I felt traumatized (mostly the trauma), and I still find myself remembering some of the hurtful and unuseful things she said to me and I have to get them out of my head. She had so many certifications, including CBT, and she had no idea whatsoever how to apply any of them. She was either just "aww" -ing and not saying more than what she thought I wanted to hear or - the opposite: being judgmental, aggressive, biased, hurtful, and angry, and it seemed like she took out her anger on me - while I was there as her patient, and her as my therapist. Again, this person was rated over 9. OVER 9! I do not know if this applies to the majority of the therapists, but the fact that she was at the top on the platform makes me wonder about the standard of actual care, or whether it's a way to massage people's feelings into feeling justified in whatever emotion they experience, without giving them any support into making progress. Customer support did help, and I got one session's worth of money back, but overall it was a complete waste of time and money.

Their offer is a smart idea, but beware that it's only a marketing pitch. I wish someone would build a service like BetterHelp.com one day, but in reality they do not connect you to a therapist, and once you pay - you won't be able to access their services. They've put in quite a bit of reviews, but since their technical platform doesn't work it's a pipedream. --- Update --- After struggling to connect and giving up, I had an exchange for the first time with the therapist through short messages in email, which was a very strange experience. I also read an email from your technical support team, to whom I complained to. Next I saw the response you've posted here about the fact that your platform does provide the services it offers. Yes, I confirm that finally there was as therapist that reached out to me, but chatting across email as an interface is not really what you've offered on your platform. There was sporadic access to the live chat functionality, but either myself or the therapist kept getting kicked from the live session, and we had our main exchanges through the email exchange, and this is not what your offering mentioned about being able to choose whether you can have a phone call or video to talk. Some people are not comfortable with always having to engage with people on phone calls or on a video chat, and prefer to have a text based exchange via live chat. As a provider of counseling and other mental help services, it's important that you understand that some people have strong preferences to use digital channels that doesn't put pressure on the user to expose their voice, or body, or other things that are causing problems for them. It's a very common capability to have live chat these days, as they are available on many social media sites, e-commerce webpages, and even in games. Ensuring this channel is user friendly and accessible for those with debilitating conditions would make sense given your target audience. If your live chat functionalities or website login user session management do not work in particular settings it might be useful to put a small notice on the launching of the service, so that users understand how to interact with the service upon launch. Finally, the native app you have is not available in the French App store and it would be useful to have the ability to download the software without having to create a US App store account.